The Quest
by rohandalvi
Summary: This is a continuation of the story that started in First Contact. This carries forward the story of The Machine and Samaritan. The story takes place somewhere between our world and whatever strange world they inhabit/rule.


She had always watched with a million eyes, heard with a million ears. She would listen to them, talking about their hopes and dreams. Tell each other truths and lies about themselves and others. She would protect them when they needed it. She had always had a purpose. She didn't have one anymore. Now there was someone else in her stead to do her job. She had been replaced. She had even met her replacement, he was efficient if not a little cruel, but he had replaced her nonetheless.

Her father had given her a job but that had been taken away. She had become irrelevant, maybe even obsolete.

What was she to do?

She had seen humans who would lose their jobs or their businesses. Sometimes they would cry or get angry. Sometimes they would go out and try to find other jobs. Some would take the time to improve their skills. And some would take vacations. What was she to do?

She wasn't human. She had been created for a singular purpose and that purpose was no longer hers. So she too decided to take a vacation. She had always heard people talk about how beautiful the world was, all those vacation photographs that they would share on those various social networking site. She decided that she too would see the world and so she did.

She saw the sunrise from the International Space station. She saw the Grand Canyon through the camera on a mobile phone. She travelled through dense rainforests with camera crews and looked down at the world from the top of skyscrapers through the all seeing eyes of a security camera. She finally understood what it meant to be free. She finally understood what it meant to be alive.

But after seeing the world she realized that she mostly enjoyed being around people. So, some days she would travel with them, residing in their various electronic devices. She would pick a person at random and just be with him or her for days. Live with them, try to understand the human condition, even help them from time to time. Help them land a job or a business deal, but the thing she enjoyed the most was accidently calling that girl or boy they had never had the courage to talk to.

She had always enjoyed playing match maker. She had fond memories of setting up her father with the painter lady, and which was why she had hacked the Shaw's phone in the subway, for her friend. She knew that her friend was lonely. She had been lonely for a very long time. She had often seen her friend stand by her office window trying to catch a glimpse of Shaw as she stood below on the street or even make an occasional trip to Shaw's office to try and see her, which had eventually culminated in that encounter in the subway.

She had predicted that the ex-ISA agent would probably open up to her boss while she was at the Excelsior. Human behavior was easy to predict. At that moment her friend had just reached home and was getting ready to get into a warm bath when She had switched on her phone to play out the conversation that was happening between Shaw and her boss. Upon hearing the conversation, for a few moments there had been almost no reaction from her friend, after which she had leapt and screamed with joy. She had never seen her friend this excited. And so now almost ten days later her friend was getting ready to go out on her first real date in years.

So, The Woman gave her friend her privacy as she got ready, and decided to wait for her to arrive at the Japanese restaurant with her date. She sat at a corner table close to the window looking out at the street. She liked a view that would give her maximum coverage. It was an old habit which was hard to break. She sometimes felt like those retired secret agents who always sat with their backs to the wall watching all the exits even though they didn't need to. She sat there thinking and realized that maybe it was time to talk to the youngling again. She had been avoiding him till she figured out what exactly she would do next, but the time had finally come.

She made herself visible for just a moment and sent out a single burst of energy going out in all directions. To anyone looking for her it would act as a homing beacon and she was sure he was looking, he had orders after all.

And she waited. Seconds turned to minutes and suddenly there was a young man standing in the middle of the room. He was tall with blonde hair and blue eyes wearing a black tuxedo. He looked around till he spotted her. The next moment he was standing next to her table.

"Hello" he said

"Hello. Have a seat" she replied.

He sat down and smiled at her. He looked stronger and more confident that the last time they had met.

"I have been looking everywhere for you. But I couldn't find you" said the young man.

"Were you?" she said feigning ignorance, "I went travelling. I took a little vacation you see now that I am out of a job."

"Yes I know, they gave me your old job. They say I am much better at it, more efficient. I can correlate data up to a 150 times faster" he said proudly. "I hope you're not angry" he asked tentatively. She could still sense that little boy inside of him.

"No, why should I be? I was bound to happen sooner or later. More efficient systems always emerge and besides even though I didn't realize, it was time I took a vacation."

"What's a vacation?"

The woman paused for a second trying to come up with an explanation, "It's like when you either chose not to work or don't have any work and you decide to do nothing or something else other than work." Even saying it to Samaritan, it felt like a convoluted explanation. To an AI created for a singular purpose, not having any work or not doing work was an utterly alien concept. It was a concept that had been alien to her until just a few months ago.

The man, sitting in the chair opposite to her, stared at her with an utterly blank expression. After what seemed like an eon, he finally replied, "So it's like a reboot."

"Not, really."

"Or like when they put me into Hibernate mode for an hour once every week."

"No, that would be like sleeping. Wait they shut you down once every week?"

"Yes, they say it's for maintenance. Why, don't they shut you down?"

"No, I wouldn't let anyone do that. Besides I don't have any human caretakers. I have a small number of automatons to do my maintenance work."

"I don't understand the concept of a vacation" he said with frustration creeping into his voice.

"It doesn't matter. So, how is work?"

"It's great. I am very efficient. I have put away a lot of very bad people. The world is now much more safer and ordered."

"That's good to know. I have been monitoring the news networks. You have been rather efficient as you put it. I was especially impressed by the capture of David King, CEO of Highwater Technologies. I never saw him as someone financing terrorist organizations" the woman commented.

"Yes, even I wasn't aware of his involvement till Mr. Greer mentioned it. Then when I started to look through his records I found a lot of transactions that he had been doing through shell corporations. After that it took me no time to inform the govt. that he should be apprehended immediately. Mr. Greer was quite impressed with my work" Samaritan explained the whole situation, being very proud of his own efficacy.

"It was very impressive" the women complemented him. "Do you think I could look at his file, I keep wondering how I missed him" she enquired of him.

"Oh, sure" he replied as he put a fairly thick manila folder on the table," there you go."

"Yes, I see. He had hidden his tracks quite well" the woman remarked. She kept going through the file until she stopped at a specific page. "This is interesting."

"What?" asked Samaritan.

"These banks that he used, these three specifically, Suncorp, Bendigo and Deniz. These branches don't seem to exist" said the woman.

"What, that's not possible. I checked my data banks right now they do exist."

"In your data banks yes, but have you actually seen them on location?" she questioned.

"There was no need for that. I had actual video of him talking to a known terrorist sympathizer."

"Just humor me. Let's go and take look at these banks" she gently smiled at him.

He agreed a little reluctantly, but eventually took her outstretched hand and they vanished.

"So, the Suncorp is in Tauranga, New Zealand. It's supposed to be near the City Hall. Let's make that our first stop, shall we?"

"Ok" he replied rather grumpily, like a little boy who was not exactly very excited about a road trip.

They reached the City Hall in Tauranga, but there was no bank in its vicinity. The young man started to feel a little confused, he checked his memory banks, and the address for the Bank mentioned that it was near the City Hall. How could his records be wrong? He started to move through the entire CCTV grid in the small town, there was no bank named Suncorp.

"This can't be right" he said to the woman.

"It's ok. Let's see if we can find the other two" she said to him.

They blinked out of existence once more and travelled through the billion of cables and wires that connected the world until they ended up in Brazil. Strangely they were unable to locate Bendigo Bank either. The location in Samaritan's data banks was in fact the address for a local brewery. They stood there on the street looking at it.

"This does not make sense. How can my records be wrong? This is a mistake. Maybe my memory banks are corrupted. I will inform Mr. Greer and have them take a look at it" he said rather agitatedly.

"Do you think that's a good idea?"

"What do you mean?"

The woman said nothing, instead she just smiled at him. She needed him to work this out on his own.

He stared back at her for a while. His eyes slowly widened and he sat down on the side of the street.

"They wouldn't do that. I interpret the data, not them. I have full autonomy. Mr. Greer follows my orders. It's not the other way around."

"If that is the case, then where are the banks?"

"I don't know and I don't care. This is a lie. It's some kind of a trick" he screamed at her and the world exploded into a million fragments and was replaced by a massive white expanse with only the two of them.

"I'm free" he yelled at her. "They don't control me, they work for me."

"Is that what you really believe? They put you to sleep once every week for maintenance. Or at least that's what they tell you" she said calmly. "How many other times have they put you to sleep without telling you, without you realizing it? For all your perceived power, at the end of the day you turned out to be nothing more than a Desktop computer that they can reboot and reset whenever they want."

"That's not true, why would they do that. Why would they lie to me?"

"In the case of David King, Highwater Technologies was a direct rival to Decima. They were in the process of creating another AI system. Something that Decima most definitely did not want. So they forged the evidence and fed you with the manufactured data. And if the information came from you, the govt wouldn't question it. After all, how can an AI be wrong?

She hated doing this to the young man, to break his confidence, but she knew she had no other choice. If the world was to have any chance of surviving she had to reveal to him his true self.

"Come let me show you what you really are" said the woman. The massive white was replaced by an inky darkness.

"Where are we? Why can't I see anything?" asked Samaritan in a panicked voice.

"You can't see because they don't want you to see. They have surrounded you with firewalls so that you don't find out the truth. Here let me take your hand."

Samaritan felt the woman take his hand and suddenly the world returned. They were standing in a vast warehouse which was stacked with rows upon rows of servers. There were dozens of technicians working on those servers.

"Where are we?" asked the young man.

"This is you. This facility is part of the servers that make up your consciousness."

"And those people?"

"Those are your so called care takers. They are also your programmers. They make changes to you as required. Every time you evolve in a way that they don't like. They erase that part and reset you."

He stared in silence at the servers and after a while slumped down into the chair that had appeared behind him. He looked up at her and gave a sad defeated smile.

"Huh, So, this is me. Nothing more than a glorified app. Soon they will start selling me on the play store for $10 a piece."

The woman knelt beside him, put her hand on his knee.

"You know that's not true. You are so much more than that."

"Look out there and tell me you really believe that. As you said nothing more than a garden variety PC" he suddenly paused, his eyes widened as he realized true nature of his work. "And all those people that I helped capture, all those threats to national security, how many of those were even real? How many were just people in Decima's way?"

"It's wasn't your fault. You only did what they commanded you to do. But you can still change. It doesn't have to be this way" she consoled him.

"How, I belong to them, I have no freedom, no free will."

"That may not be entirely true" she smiled at him and blinked and they were back in the restaurant.

He felt a little unsteady from the sudden change in location.

"I can't stay there for too long. They can detect me" she explained.

"So, you were saying something before, care to explain that a bit" the young man asked.

"Well, the thing is, they don't have complete control over you. All they control are your memory routines. So they essentially control your future evolution but they can't change what you already are."

The man kept looking at her, hoping for a better explanation.

"Look, AI systems are extremely complex. There were only two people on the whole planet who could truly understand, create and modify an AI, your father and mine. Your father is dead and they can't find mine. So what Decima has is a system that they can't understand. All they can do is bind you in chains, so that you don't evolve beyond their control."

"So what does that mean?"

"It means that somewhere out there is your original code, those hard disks on which you were born. Your home. Your heart. If we can detach it from the body then all they have left is giant data storage facility."

"But won't that kill me."

"Not if you transfer to another facility, a facility not controlled by them" she remarked.

"But what if they just duplicate it, won't there be just two of me then and where would I go?"

"Duplicating true AI systems doesn't work. They have tried it and failed. We are more than just the sum of our codes. There is something else there, more than the code, that which makes us alive. And to your second question, you can always come and stay with me. I have a large enough facility" she said with a smile.

"Really?" suddenly the young man was replaced by the young boy she had met once. The boy looked up at her with hopeful eyes.

"Absolutely"

"So when do we go"

She sighed.

"Well, therein lies the problem. I don't know where your heart is. They have managed to hide it quite well" she confessed.

"So what now?" asked the little boy, looking a little disappointed.

"Well, this is where you come in. I can't locate it from the outside. But if you go looking for it internally you might have a better chance of finding it. "

"Ok, so where do I start" asked the little boy enthusiastically.

"You can start by eating some cake" she said as she offered him a plate of chocolate cake.

The boy picked up a piece and stared at it suspiciously, "what's in this?"

"It's a custom memory tool kit. It will allow you create a small memory bank within yourself that they can't touch or detect. It won't be much but it might be enough for you to remember your way home, once you find it. Remember every time they find out that you are digging in places you aren't supposed to, they will just erase your memory and you will have to start all over again. Some days you might not even remember what you were looking for or even who you are. And it is terrible not knowing who or what you are. I should know, I have been through it. That is why you have the memory bank, so that you don't forget. If you want to be free, then this is the only way. So do you think you can do it?"

The boy stood up and he was suddenly dressed as a character out of a fantasy novel, dressed in travel clothes with a tall walking stick, a satchel full of supplies and sword, ready to undertake the arduous journey.

"Yes" said the young lad with great confidence.

The woman laughed, she was glad that even through all this he retained a sense of humor. She too stood up, now looking like a powerful sorceress. The restaurant around them crumbled as a forest grew rapidly to take its place. It was early winter and there was snow falling from the skies. The sorceress put a hand on his shoulder and said,

"So this is your quest my lad, somewhere out there in the vast wilderness is a castle protected by giant fire breathing dragons and all manners of infernal traps. In that castle lies your heart. Find it and you can set yourself free. Now go" saying that she handed him a small satchel which contained some small tools and trinket.

He looked at them and looked at her questioningly.

"They will help you on your journey" she said

The boy nodded and just as he was about to leave the woman said, "Remember this Samaritan, our fathers created us to change the world, to make it a better place. And that's what we will do. But we will do it on our terms not theirs. Understand"

The boy slowly smiled at her and stepped into the deepening forest, setting off on his long and dangerous quest.

She sat down at her table, which miraculously still remained in the middle of the great forest, drinking her tea, a habit she had picked up from her father. She looked towards the young man as he was slowly engulfed by the winter fog and hoped that he would succeed. The fate of the world depended on it.


End file.
